Trauma Responsive Social Work Services Partnership Delivery Group: minutes: November 2024

Attendees and apologies

Representatives from the following:

• Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS)
• Children and Young Peoples Centre for Justice (CYCJ)
• Community Justice Scotland (CJS)
• Heads of Social Work Higher Education Institutions (HEI)
• Improvement Service (IS)
• NHS Education for Scotland (NES)
• Scottish Government (SG)
• Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC)
• Social Work Education Partnership (SWEP) Programme Office
• Social Work Scotland (SWS)
• Social Work Scotland Workforce and Resources Committee
• Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum (STAF)

Items and actions

Overview

This was the eighth meeting of the Trauma Responsive Social Work Services (TRSWS) Partnership Delivery Group. The purpose of this meeting was to give partners a forum to provide updates on their specific actions within the work plan, and to discuss how best we can work together with our partners/stakeholders.

Introductions

The meeting began by the Chair noting apologies from members. All members in attendance provided brief introductions. Apologies noted from Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW), Care Inspectorate and Who Cares? Scotland.

Note of previous meeting

The group approved the meeting note from the seventh Partnership Delivery Group meeting on 29 April 2024 via email.

Discussion and updates from Partners

NHS Education for Scotland (NES)

• Collaborating with stakeholders responsible for alternative caregivers policy, looking to create further resources for alternative caregivers between trauma skilled and enhanced level, including training
• Continuing to roll out trauma skilled level training for the workforce that supports children and young people
• Working with Scottish Government colleagues to increase resources and capacity for the workforce supporting individuals with problem drug use
• Recent launch of the new Victims and Witness e-learning module

Higher Education Institutions Heads of Social Work

• Stirling University – recently updated training modules to include more trauma informed content for students. TRSWS colleagues are scheduled to deliver a trauma informed leadership learning session to social work educators/lecturers in December. Colleague from Stirling university has signed up to a training programme that is being delivered by University of Columbia, focusing on trauma and violence informed practice

SWEP Programme Office

• Following actions from previous meeting, decision has been made that TRSWS team will sit on the SWEP Delivery Group
• New website launched at the end of May and now reflects the change in governance following recent restructuring
• Evaluated data from the recent online workshop series and have shared findings with the strategic group. Some recurring themes were the need for greater consistency across social work education university courses and greater infrastructure support. Evaluation report likely be published in the next couple of weeks

SG NTTP

• Collaborating on work around supporting alternative caregivers, reviewing training content and running some stakeholder workshops to look at what this offer will look like in the future

SSSC

• A survey was developed between TRSWS and SSSC and the SSSC has issued the survey to the social work workforce. Very positive numbers completed and SSSC are now drafting report on findings from survey on the experience of professional supervision in supporting trauma informed and trauma responsive social work practice. Report due to be published early 2025. This report will inform SSSC and TRSWS on how best to support supervision for social workers. Learning will be relevant for other public services
• Received positive feedback from workers and their employers following update to the Codes of Practice, many feel that it’s more grounded in practice and has a greater social work focus. Following this, some additional work is taking place regarding rights and relationship-based practice
• Currently developing resources for social workers supporting children and young people and looking at ways in which the codes of practice feed into this
• Received feedback following the implementation of new Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) requirements. Currently looking to embed the CPL into the learning zone website to improve accessibility and to get more data on what is being used by users
• Formal process for social workers returning to practice is now fully implemented. Currently 12 individuals have applied to return to practice

Update from Trauma Responsive Social Work Services Team

The Trauma Responsive Social Work Services Programme provided an update on the implementation support and learning programme, evaluation, professional supervision, and trauma skilled training for newly qualified and early career social workers.  The slides can be requested from the secretariat.

Key details include:

• Phase 1 of the Implementation Support and Learning Programme has been completed with leaders in all 4 sites
• Currently reviewing data received from the supervision survey. Findings are incorporated into the supervision training developed by the TRSWS team
• Delivering trauma skilled training to 3rd year undergraduate students at Glasgow Caledonian University and University of Stirling, with University of Edinburgh to be scheduled in the new year. Initial feedback from this work has been really positive. The team will review learning and discuss next steps university colleagues
• 12 trauma skilled training sessions with follow-up coaching support scheduled until Summer 2025 for newly qualified social workers across Scotland. Interim offer while we work with local NQSW leads to embed the offer into their supported year programmes
• Supporting pathfinders from the Bairn’s Hoose project, helping them to think about how they can use the trauma roadmap for this work

Delivery partner updates

The delivery partners provided the following updates on work progressing within their own organisations.

CYCJ

• Continuing work on The Promise bid to create a supportive workforce
• Current work has focused on analysing information from people who come into conflict with the law due to difficult behaviours and creating a literature base around this. Next steps will be to use this information to create a training package for the workforce
• Reimagining secure care report was published in September and is currently being reviewed by the Scottish Government

STAF

• As part of the Supportive Workforce Project we are helping staff to develop a new supervision framework for Throughcare and Aftercare teams
• Looking to explore development of postgraduate certificate for throughcare and aftercare, open to speaking to partners doing any similar work to this
• Currently developing a learning channel that will host the Life Changes Trust legacy work of care experienced projects
• Working in partnership with Open University to develop a new trauma informed and relationship-based practice online course. This will help to compliment the NES trauma resources
• Working in partnership with colleagues at CYCJ to look at trauma informed practice for people in conflict with the law

CELCIS

• Continuing to work with colleagues in the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) to develop trauma training for reporters

SWS

• Currently involved in work to support alternative caregivers
• Workstream exploring what we mean by relationship-based practice in the context of Self-directed Support
• Conversations are taking place to look at secure care and how trauma informed practice can help support this

CJS

• Working with NES to get online trauma learning resources onto the learning system to create a suite of learning products for justice social workers and para-professionals

Workplan refresh

Group agreed to refresh the Work Plan in the new year and will review existing priorities and include any new actions. TRSWS team agreed to develop a programme update paper which will be circulated to partners for their comment.

Next steps and actions

• TRSWS secretariat to share TRSWS Programme evaluation plan with partners

• SSSC to link in with HEI representative from Edinburgh University to discuss arranging a potential shared learning event on trauma with social work course providers